


Lillian

by moodymuse19



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-31
Updated: 2005-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-01 08:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/354383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymuse19/pseuds/moodymuse19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex's mom subtly butts into her son's life, and the result alters his friendship with Clark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lillian

## Lillian

by Fabs G.

<http://moodymuse19.livejournal.com>

* * *

*If I could turn back time  
I'll go wherever you will go  
If I could make you mine  
I'll go wherever you will go 

If I could, then I would  
I'll go wherever you will go  
Way up high or down low  
I'll go wherever you will go  
\--Wherever you will go, The Calling* 

The sun was already starting to hide behind the horizon when Lex pulled a Porsche--which one, the Kent family couldn't differentiate anymore--into the farm's driveway and killed the engine at the same time he opened the door. He stopped. Muscles in tension, as a tiger poised to attack. Pursing his lips together to suppress a smile that had nothing to do with evil, friendly or funny, Lex got out of the car, locked it and walked to Clark--slowly. The view had to be enjoyed. Clark was soaked from head to foot, clothes dripping, part of his wet hair flying about tangled and the rest stuck to his face. He shook his head violently, and the result reminded Lex of how the Pink Panther would leave the washing machine. Fluffy-dry Clark. Clark's t-shirt and jeans stuck to all the right places and Lex couldn't help but smile at the perfect six-pack the boy sported. Look at that. Lex had not only manage to hopelessly fall for someone with incorruptible morals, he had also managed to fall for someone who had a body who would make Lex willingly turn into mother Theresa if Clark knew how to use it. Knowing Clark, the boy would learn fast enough. _Easy, Lex_ he told himself. _God knows this is no moment to lust after him._ Not that this simple sentence had ever been successful at preventing Lex's secret ogling, but the moment really wasn't appropriate. Smirk firmly in place, Lex grabbed the hem of Clark's shirt between his thumb and index finger and held it up as he would hold a mouse by the tail. "What catastrophe has happened to you?" Clark took the shirt from Lex's hand, twisted the end of his shirt as if drying an old cloth, and deliberately sprinkling water on Lex. "Ever lost your footing and fell into the place where cows drink their water?" "Gladly, no" said Lex as he stepped back. Those shoes had been worn only twice before, after all. Clark chuckled. "I'm not poisoned Lex. And anyway, it was fresh water. I don`t have animal saliva all over me" "Luckily for your immune system." Lex looked at the house. "Why are we standing here waiting for you to freeze to death?" "Because I'll flood the house." Just as he began saying this, Martha emerged from the house with towels, an afghan and a change of clothes. "Hello Lex." she smiled pleasantly. "Trouble?" Lex shook his head as Clark shook his--and sprinkled both his mother and Lex. "Merely visiting" he said as he pushed Clark's wet head far away. "Glad to hear that" she looked at Clark sternly. "Stop sprinkling everybody like a wet dog. Dry yourself, change your clothes and don't stay out too long. I mean it" Clark smiled as he took the towels and Lex took the afghans and clothes from Martha, knowing Clark would get it all wet. "Promise. Boy Scout's honor" "Honey, that works for people who actually _were_ in the boy scouts." Martha smiled at them and went back inside. Lex waited to be a little away from the house. Mothers around the world had an inkling for eavesdropping, after all. "Can I talk to you?" said Lex as they made their way to Clark's loft. "You have always managed to scare me with that. Is something wrong?" Clark handed Lex one of the dry towels, took of his t-shirt, discarding it besides the barn door and draped one of the towels--as big as Kansas itself--over his shoulders. "No, I'm just--confused" he said for lack of a better word. Lex managed to hold his load with one hand and use one of the smaller towels to rub dry the waterfall that was Clark's wet hair--all this while climbing the stairs. Clark smiled at the touch. For someone without hair, Lex knew how to massage a scalp incredibly well. He smiled as, when they arrived upstairs, Lex threw the towel to Clark's face and dumped the rest of he stuff on one of the couches. Lex watched him bend over-- _breathe, Lex_ \--and scrub his hair vigorously, finally drying it considerably. "You believe in signs, Clark? Clark's head emerged from under the small towel. "Signs?" for a stupid second he expected Mel Gibson to jump from behind the hay. Lex didn't move from besides the window. "Signs, that--help you. That tell you don't make your destiny--or are victim to it-- alone, that you're helped. Guided." Lex's voice wasn't strained, but there was something odd to it, more... naked than Lex normally allowed himself to sound. Clark tossed the wet towel over the railing, hoping it'd land somewhere in the vicinity of the discarded t-shirt and moved on to dry his torso. "Like God or people you loved and are now gone?" Lex nodded. "I've been hearing my mother's name constantly lately." Lex turned to look at the outside sky. He liked avoiding gazes whenever he spoke of her. "I'm walking down the street and suddenly there are three Lillians being called. Everybody seems to be buying Lilies this days. I need a new gardener at the mansion, Bob retired? Four of the applicants were called Lillian--not to mention all Lilies at the mansion have dried and I need new ones. Not the tulips, not the roses, just the lilies. The list goes on. Songs, actresses, cartoon characters! It's normal to hear it several times, it's not exactly an exotic name, but hearing it twenty times per day? It's driving me insane" Clark, towel draped over his shoulders, came to stand besides Lex. "It shouldn't. Those are signs, Lex. Now, no one I loved has ever died, so I can't speak from personal experience, but the way you say it... Your mother loved you, Lex. She still does." Lex smiled at that. It felt good to hear it. "And she's screaming at the tops of her ghostly lungs, trying to tell me something and I don't know what it is." "What's been bothering you lately?"  
"Nothing" came the response, more automatic than thought of. Clark chuckled. "Give me a little credit here" said Clark. _So should you, wonderboy_ , thought Lex. Lex pondered as he stared into Clark's face. _Fine, mum_ he thought, _this is all your doing. Screw it all._ "You have." Clark's world shook a little. He decided it was time to continue drying himself off. "Me? Why?" Lex put a hand on his shoulder, took the soaked towel and tossed it over the railing, careless from where it fell. There were only so many times a person could dry themselves. "Give me a little credit here." Clark had the decency of looking sheepish. "I've had few true friends all my life. Barring my mother, Pamela and you, there's been three people who I have called friend. All three of them were either bought or blackmailed into it. At least to begin so, then it evolved into something more honest. You can't be bought, you won't be blackmailed, and you don't hang around me for the money or the power. You saved my life and didn't want anything in exchange." "I'm not interested in the money or the power. I'm interested in you," said Clark. In any other conversation, with Clark shirtless and semi-wet, and with his jeans clinging to him like that, Lex would've smirked, innuendoes would have poured like rainfall and by midnight they'd had lost their common sense enough to do it in the barn. Not now, no matter how much they wanted it. "I know, Clark. So I can't understand why you don't trust me. Why you lie to me." He went to the sofa and grabbed one of the afghans as he continued speaking. "No, scratch the lying part. I don't mind my friends lying to me if there's a good genuine reason--self defense, protection, love, you name it--but trust? That hurts" he said almost softly, draping the afghan over Clark's shoulders. "You're right," said Clark, hugging the afghan to himself and looking at Lex. "Friendship shouldn't be this hard. Even between a Luthor and a Kent." Lex suddenly wanted to touch Clark. Even a hand on his shoulder would suffice. "We get the basics right--" said Lex "--we respect each other, you're in danger I come running, I'm in danger you come running, but friendship is about love and trust." Seldom had Lex been this sincere. Stunned, all Clark could do was nod. "We need to work on the trust part" he said slowly. "We've been lying to each other endlessly. Constantly. Maybe more than we should have. We're screwing it up, Clark. We have the potential of being the kind of friends you hear from grandparents' stories and we're turning it into a Greek tragedy." he looked into Clark's eyes and added softly, "We're screwing it up" Clark wondered if Lex realized he was rubbing circles in Clark's back. Lex's proximity, his words and tacit worry over his freezing to death made it all the more difficult. Clark hugged the afghan to him again, sighed as Lex removed his hand, and looked out to the sky. He'd lost the nerve to look at Lex in the eyes minutes ago. "I should have had this conversation with you long ago, shouldn't I?" He was scared, true, he was scared shitless of what would happen in the next minutes, but even he could recognize a fundamental line. It was at this moment that, if he lied to Lex again, everything would change. Their friendship would be so shattered it'd have been unrecognizable by morning. Lex agreed softly. He leaned on the wall by the window of the barn to get a good view of Clark's face. Shaking his head slightly, Clark told himself that if he intended to save his friendship with Lex--just his friendship, forget about the possibility of anything else--then he had to look at the guy in the face at the very least. He leaned on the windowsill, mirroring Lex`s position and sighed. "I'm not a meteor mutant" he began, softly. No need for raised voices or complicated words now. "And you did hit me with your car" Lex's voice was soft and utterly normal. "I thought as much." Clark looked down and back at Lex. "These pants are becoming a second skin. Can I--?" Lex smiled. "You suddenly need my permission?" "I don't want you to think I'm changing the subject" "I can tell when you are, so I know you're not. Besides, I don't want you to turn into ice in the middle of the conversation." Then he stopped and thought. "Could you freeze to death?" Clark smiled slightly. "It'd take a lot. But if you've ever worn wet jeans, you'll know how uncomfortable they are." "True" agreed Lex and pretended not to watch as Clark dried himself and changed even his underwear. Lex's smirk turned into something between a grin and a leer, but was quickly erased as he saw Clark walk back to him. "Where were we?" asked Clark casually. A little too casually. Lex wondered if Clark was having doubts. Lex leaned on the windowsill. Clark was far more interesting than the starry sky now. "You survive a nut hitting you with his Porsche at 60mph and you can't freeze to death." Clark grinned but found he suddenly didn't know how to go on. "What happened to you?" asked Lex softly. "I was abandoned" said Clark softly. He was perfectly happy with Jonathan and Martha, they were mum and dad in every single important sense of the word that mattered to him--but late at night, when all thoughts had gone to sleep, a single question remained... "I was not only abandoned, I was tossed off the damn planet" Well, that explains a lot of things. "And you arrived here with the meteor shower" This definitely ranked in Lex's Top Ten Weirdest Conversations Ever. "Yeah. Mum and Dad found me and later on I had a little surprise stored for them," he said, trying for some lighter conversation but feeling he had failed. "So you're strong, fast and the closest thing to invulnerable. How did they find out?" "Seeing me stumble alive out of a goddamn spaceship crater was clue enough, Lex" he said, surprisingly even himself at the angry tone. Lex didn`t even wince. "I mean, what's the first of your abilities you showed them?" Clark smiled in a way that wasn't entirely calming. "My favorite" and he put his hands on Lex's hips and lifted him up like if he was a ballerina made up of nothing heavier than paper. One of Lex's arm shot around Clark's shoulders out of reflex. "Jesus Christ" he breathed as Clark put him down. Clark reveled in the short-lived closeness. "You lifted them up?" Clark shook his head. "The framing of a bed. Really heavy framing." "And you were how old?"  
"About three, they reckon"  
"They're not sure?" and he realized the answer just as Clark spoke. "Well, they really can't be sure how old I was when they found me. So I can easily be fourteen or eighteen" The idea of Clark being fourteen scared Lex into more levels he cared to recognize. "Here's hoping you're eighteen" he said a little breathless. Clark smiled at him, but while there was the joy of having finally unsettled Lex Luthor, there was something definitely wrong with that smile. "What is it?" breathed Lex, because he was pretty much unable to say anything else at the moment. Clark went to the couch and sat down, eyes on the sky. "I've hated lying to you. Every time I... did something, every time I had to save you" Lex crossed his arm before his chest as he sat down in an attempt to guard his dignity a bit more. Clark turn to look at him. "Every time you asked how I did something, or what had happened, or--anything. I wanted to tell you." "Why didn`t you?"  
"I have overprotective parents," he said, as if it were both a punishment and a blessing... which it was. "The thought of me strapped to a lab table--" Lex winced at the thought and his breathe hitched a bit. Clark's inside felt a bit warmer. "--or someone taking advantage of me scares them to death" Lex's smirk was small and said a lot more that Lex did. "They think you can be taken advantage of?" Clark smiled in return. A good, wide, very Clarkian smile. "They think *you`re* taking advantage of me" Lex had the good sense of frowning and wincing a bit. "Anyway" he said later. "You know there're no hard feelings, right?" Clark only stared.  
"Okay, I'll admit it hurts" he said as he got up and went to the window. It was a wonder how that window seemed to help so many people be sincere. As if all you had to do to pour your heart out was to stand there and watch the sky. "To realize there was something major going on with my best friend and at the same time know he didn't trust me with it? Yes, it hurts. But now I get the whole picture. I understand why you didn't tell me. It's okay." "Lex, I lied to you." Clark insisted, and Lex wondered if Clark was going into a guilt trip or was trying for Lex to get mad. "That's not the kind of thing you take lightly. You said it yourself, you find it very hard to give people a second chance. When was the last time someone lied to a Luthor and lived to tell the tale? Or, at the very least, was able to keep their friendship?" Lex chuckled and realized he had to be careful--Clark might actually end up knowing him better than anyone else. He looked at him. "Few. And some of them in a less that ideal state of health," he said as he smiled. "But you're going to be the exception, Clark" Any other person would`ve been scared to have this conversation with Alexander J. Luthor, but this was Lex, _his_ Lex, and by know Clark knew how to differentiate when Lex meant business and when he didn`t. He smiled. "So I get a jail free card?" Lex chuckled at him, but then his smile turned more solemn. "You're one of the few good things in my life, Clark. I'm not so stupid as to throw that away for a small lie. And apparently, neither is my mother" he added softly. Clark opened his mouth to retort, but Lex was years light faster than him. "Your lie to protect yourself--and your parents--was entirely understandable and justifiable. I would've done the same, there's few things I wouldn't do to protect you." Roger Nixon came to his mind and suddenly, Lex realized he had not only killed him to protect Jonathan, but also Clark. "No, wait, there's nothing I wouldn't do to protect you." Clark's smile made Lex feel so good he wondered if he was suddenly developing a fever. "Big brother feeling?" asked Clark cautiously. Lex fought to not drop innuendoes in his answer. "No, Clark." Then he frowned as a cold shower hit him, making him feel like he wasn't developing a fever but had actually stepped into a rather cold walk-in freezer. "Is that what you want to be? Brothers?" Voice calculated, not a tone different than normal. "Brothers? No." Clark's expert mix of smirk and smile was so good, so eloquent, and so _Lex_ , it made Lex's own smile grew to twice its size. Not to mention other parts of his body. "But being close friends is a good start" And then with a super-speed that had nothing to do with alien-ness and had everything to do with hormones, Clark stood up, went to Lex and kissed him full on the mouth, as efficiently as he would've under red meteor rock influence. Better yet, because this was real.  
Lex had long ago decided to store this night under 'strange, but potentially life altering' because there was nothing normal about it. For once, they were being sincere about everything and, Lex sighed happily, it looked like they were going to be sincere to each other on a whole new level, too. One of Clark's hands went to hold Lex's head from behind, trapping him efficiently while his other hand wondered in the general area of Lex's waist. After being effectively impressed--again--Lex regained used to his limbs and his arms went around Clark's bigger frame, effectively killing all personal space. Clark either moaned, or groaned, or sighed--he wasn't sure which--but Lex returned Clark's kiss even more passionately and expertly at that sound. He wished Clark would make that sound more often. Nobody glowed, nobody hummed, and Clark didn't suddenly develop a whole new range of powers, but the kiss was nevertheless what, if they hadn't been guys, they'd had called magical. True, it was a bit clumsy on Clark's part because his experience was less than vast, but the truth was it didn't matter. They kissed and sucked and bit and _groped_ and the fact that it was them doing it in their full mental capacity was something that, by Smallville's standards, had every right to be called magical. The need for air, sadly, became serious and they pulled apart, panting as if they'd ran a considerable distance without breathing properly. Lex raised one of his hands to Clark's neck to hold him in place, forehead to forehead. It felt really good that they were smiling and couldn't seem to do anything else. "I was afraid" Clark breathed after some seconds. Lex frowned and pulled back a bit to look into Clark's eyes. None of the four hands moved, though. "Afraid?" "Afraid that when you found out you'd hate me...or you'd see me as a freak." A couple of hands moved, one fell to the side of whoever it was that had moved it, but personal space was still non existent, as was the difference between them. They could've easily be one single person. "Clark-" Clark interrupted. He let go of Lex to sit on the couch, because being held by Lex and being by the window breathing in the dusk air felt too naked for being this sincere. The couch made him feel like he was being comforted by someone else, as if being patted on the back and told that being that honest wasn't weakening. "Every mutant that's gone through school, I've seen them all, I've stopped nearly all of them, Lex." he raised his eyes to look at him. Lex hadn't moved from the window, "I've seen how they're treated--like the pity case of the week or like phenomenon. I couldn't have taken that look from you" Lex didn`t move. Stunned. Scared that Clark actually thought that of him. "I'm not looking at you like that, Clark. You're not a phenomenon, you're not a freak, and we know each other too well to start pitying ourselves." Clark only nodded.  
Staring into the floor, pondering too many things at once, Lex never knew if he yielded to a sudden impulse or if he finally allowed himself to do what he'd wanted for some time. He sat on the opposite extreme of the couch that Clark was sitting and swung one of his legs over the seat. He extended a hand. "Come here" "I'm not a girl, Lex" said Clark, but a smile was playing with his lips as he moved to him. "And if you were, I wouldn't be doing this" Clark relaxed as Lex brought him to his chest and hugged him as if Clark was the most special thing on Lex's world. And, who knew? Maybe he was.  
One of Clark's hand went to rest on one of Lex`s tights while the other one grabbed the hands that were clasped over his chest. "So I assume Victoria and Desiree were guys, then." he said pleasantly. Lex chuckled. "No. Must you mention them now? You know what happened with Desiree, and Victoria was business. An unpleasant and rather disgusting one at that. I wasn't in love with her." Oh, the routes that conversation could go down. The replies that came to Clark's mind were virtually endless, but he chose a safe one. "For some days, I thought you were." "Turn" said Lex suddenly.  
Clark frowned. "What?"  
"Turn. Look at me"  
Clark turned, and faced Lex. Lex scrutinized Clark's face closely, burning it into his brain as if that was the last time he'd see him. After what for Clark felt like the shortest ages of his life, Lex shook his head very slowly. "I wasn't in love with her." Clark smiled a smile Lex was pretty sure he'd never given to anyone else in his life and relaxed, leaning back into Lex's embrace. Dusk turned into night. The sounds outside grew steadily quieter with the coming of night, but they didn't move. There was a slightly panicked second when Jonathan called to Clark from one of the barn doors out of sight from them, but they relaxed when Clark told his father to have dinner without them and Jonathan left. After another while, Lex smiled. "Say it" he said suddenly. "Say what?" asked Clark, and wondered when had Lex started reading him so well. "Whatever it is you're dying to ask"  
Clark hesitated. "Well, now you know everything there is to know about me. Literally, everything. What about you, Lex? I'm not the only one who's kept secrets." Lex had known this was coming to come sooner or later. The decision to come clean to each other wasn't unilateral, it was something they had both decided. "I know. And I'll tell you. Just don't expect me to say it all in one night. It's not that easy for me." Clark went a bit stiff in Lex`s embrace, and he turned a bit to get a look at Lex. "Easy? You thought telling my best friend I'm an alien was easy?" "Of course it wasn't. And you risked a lot more than I have to risk. But you've trusted people with this before. Even if just your parents, they've seen you for who you are entirely and kept loving you. I don't have that." "Yes you do." said Clark softly, taking one of his hands to Lex`s cheek. "But you still don't know everything about me. That's what ... scares me" The last time he'd been so sincere about his feelings of being scared, Lex had probably being 10 years old. He felt odd and naked doing it tonight. "Lex... don't be." He thought for a moment. "You know how I stand about killing?" Lex nodded. Clark was firmly planted on the ground against it. "You know when Jude Royce `came back'? Until it was all cleared up, I thought you had killed Jude just because you had gotten carried away. When I ran to Club Zero to save you, I still believed you were the killer." Light dawned on Lex`s eyes. "It was you who knocked the hell out of Amanda's brother, right?" "Yes. My point is--"  
Lex looked truly puzzled. "How?"  
"I'll give you a private show later, deal?" Lex smiled widely, and Clark wished he'd do that more often. "My point is--I`m too crazy about you to start hating you overnight, Lex. That`s not going to happen. Ever, I believe" Lex only nodded as Clark settled back against him. He made a mental note of taking Clark to his mother's tomb one day, thanking her for tonight, and leaving her the most beautiful bunch of Lilies from Mrs. Kent's garden. "Clark?" he called out a bit later. His voice sounded strained, as though it was taking a great effort from him to speak. "Yes, Lex?"  
Lex lowered his head and smelled Clark`s hair. It smelled like clean air, of hay and sweat and of something Lex couldn't quite place, but was not all that troubled about the chance of smelling it for as long as he lived. "I`m crazy too" Clark nuzzled into Lex's embrace--snuggle, was the technical term for it-- and hugged one of his arms tighter, keeping Lex to him, as Lex did the same with the whole of Clark's frame. The hug was strange, and their position on the couch even more so, but not because they were two boys, but because of the lack of habit of it. Lex didn't tolerate anyone touching him, and had always made the exception with Clark, letting little touches linger here and there. Clark, taller than most and afraid of squeezing someone too hard, seldom hugged people with as much passion as he was now. But they both let habits and traits sleep, because they recognized the need of creating new habits tonight, letting some old traits slip past and leave room for new ones. The lies wouldn't magically end that night, and they both knew that. There'd come times when a lie or two would be uttered, and the other one would know he was being lied to. Maybe they'd even break up one day, only to reconcile the following week, maybe the following month. But tonight actually provided their future with a chance of always remembering that once, in a night that had had nothing special in and of itself, they had come forward like they had been meant to, and had managed to create a new, clean slate for themselves. One day they'd realize they had managed to provide their future with the strength they'd need to overcome everything that was to come their way and maybe, just maybe, to overcome all of it together, as friends, as lovers, and as legends. 


End file.
